Live lining bunker question

[togzilla]

Question: For live lining bunker when on a boat with other fisherman do you prefer braid tied to your three way swivel or use braid and then a top shot of mono and if so how long a top shot?

[Brewlugger]

If you are on a crowded party boat I would run about 50 to 100 ft Topshot. If you are on a private or headboat with less people I would tie direct to the swivel. It depends on how much weight you are using and if your bait is swimming all over the place. If you are freelining definitely use a topshot. Everyone has their own way of doing things. Do what makes sense to you for the conditions.

[hookset]

Are you snag and dropping or hooking line bunker over good readings? Top shot is always recommend regardless of what you are doing. Snag and drop requires less leader and if hooking lives I would say 25 to 50 foot is plenty for top shot. What kind of boat?how many ppl?

[SaltLife1980]

Fish mono!!

[Billfish715]

Originally Posted by togzilla

Question: For live lining bunker when on a boat with other fisherman do you prefer braid tied to your three way swivel or use braid and then a top shot of mono and if so how long a top shot?

Why would you use braid unless you already have it on your reel and don't want to change it out? There is nothing.......absolutely nothing.......wrong with using mono. You can always tie on a heavier leader without using a swivel with a simple mono-to-mono uniknot. Egg sinkers or fish finder rigs can always be easily attached if necessary.

[Gerry Zagorski]

Originally Posted by SaltLife1980

Fish mono!!

Yes... If you are new to live lining I would recommend using mono not braid as well... The line stretching qualities actually help you in this situation...If you are using braid and you get excited on the hook set you can easily pull it the hook unless your drag is set just right.

[tombanjo]

If on a party boat, get a rental rod, attach the bunker to a tailed 47, send it out a bit and lock the reel. It might be my frustrated imagination but they seem to have the highest success rate.

[togzilla]

I should have disclosed that I already have braid on my reels. Going on a charter from this site and we will have 14 people. I'm going to go with a 75ft topshot

[SaltLife1980]

Originally Posted by togzilla

I should have disclosed that I already have braid on my reels. Going on a charter from this site and we will have 14 people. I'm going to go with a 75ft topshot

IMO 25 feet is enough. Hardly ever put more then that on

[Gerry Zagorski]

One other thing to consider is the placement of the sinker, if you plan to use one. When we're live lining we like to mix it up. Some guys will fish with weight and others won't so were fishing some up top and others deeper.

What we typically do is tie a barrel swivel in around 3 or 4 feet up from the hook leader. Above the other side of the barrel we thread on a sinker slide with a clip... We use the slider/sinker clip so we can attach a weight if we'd like or fish without one.. If you use an egg sinker this is not an option since you can't remove the weight unless you re tie... You can however use a 3 way with a sinker clip instead of the slide.

The reason that we tie the barrel in at around 3 to 4 feet is because anything more then that, it makes it really hard to cast since you can't reel the barrel and sinker slide through your pole tip and anything longer then 3 to 4 feet between your pole tip and your bunker makes it difficult to cast...

An added benefit of this set up is we can also use it to chunk and no need to re tie.... If you get into a hot bite on livies and you look into the live well and all you have is some dead floaters, throw a dead one on with weight and fish it until you can get more live ones..